Lectures

Spring
2025
Lecture
Series

man reading a book at a desk in a library
Man pushing a figure into a grave

NICOLE HUGHES, Stanford

Disputed Martyrs and the End of Christian Antiquity in La Florida

Tuesday, February 25, 5:15 pm
Macksey Seminar Room 2043
Brody Learning Commons, JHU Homewood Campus

Co-sponsored by the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute

SANDRO LA BARBERA, University of Trento

Like A Virgil: Culex and the Canon

Tuesday, March 11, 5:15 pm
Macksey Seminar Room 2043
Brody Learning Commons, JHU Homewood Campus

EARLE HAVENS, Johns Hopkins University, and JENNIFER JARVIS, Johns Hopkins University

Renaissance Sundials: A Paper Tool “Making Event”

Tuesday, March 25, 5:15 pm
George Peabody Library
Attendees learn about, assemble, and take home a 17th-century paper sundial.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Conservation & Preservation, Sheridan Libraries, JHU

RICHARD KAGAN, Johns Hopkins University

Book Launch: The Inquisition’s Inquisitor: Henry Charles Lea of Philadelphia

Tuesday, April 8, 5:15 pm
Macksey Seminar Room 2043
Brody Learning Commons, JHU Homewood Campus

Co-sponsored by the KSAS Dean’s Office and the JHU Academy

MASTER CLASS

Renaissance Humanist Print Culture, Washington DC (Folger Shakespeare Library, Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, and a private rare book collection)

Friday, May 2, all day

Co-sponsored by the Department of Classics, the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, and the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

Interested faculty and graduate students must RSVP to sterncenter@jhu.edu by April 14 to enroll in this Master Class.

PAST LECTURES

PAST LECTURES

Fall
2024
Lecture
Series

picture of astronomer
picture of annotations

GERARD GONZÁLEZ GERMAIN, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Modern Books on Ancient Stones: The Development and Reception of Printed Collections of Inscriptions in the 16th Century

Tuesday, September 3, 5:15 pm
Brody Learning Commons, JHU Homewood Campus

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe, and the Department of Classics, JHU

KELSEY CHAMPAGNE, St. Mary’s College of Maryland

Keeper of the Crèche: Religion, Economics, and Material Culture in an Early Modern Tuscan Convent

Wednesday, September 25, 5:15 pm
Macksey Seminar Room 2043
Brody Learning Commons, JHU Homewood Campus

Co-sponsored by the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, JHU

JOSÉ MONTELONGO, Brown University

In Search of the Intended Reader: Historical Reading Practices in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

Tuesday, October 15, 5:15 pm
Macksey Seminar Room 2043
Brody Learning Commons, JHU Homewood Campus

Co-sponsored by the Program in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies, JHU

JARED HICKMAN, Johns Hopkins University

Maryland as New Ireland: The Landscape, Language, and Legacy of Charles Carroll the Settler

Tuesday, November 12, 5:15 pm
Macksey Seminar Room 2043
Brody Learning Commons, JHU Homewood Campus

Co-sponsored by the Department of English, JHU

NICHOLAS JONES, Yale University

A Provocation on the State of the Field: Cervantine Blackness

Tuesday, December 3, 5:15pm
Macksey Seminar Room 2043
Brody Learning Commons, JHU Homewood Campus

Co-sponsored by the Spanish and Portuguese Section of the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures, JHU

Spring
2024
Lecture
Series

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, c. 1618-20
engraving of man handing another a medical script

OLIVIA WEISSER, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Shopping for Pox Cures in Early Modern London

Tuesday, March 7, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Medicine,
and the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine, JHU

MATTEO VENIER, University of Udine

Another Side of Italian Humanistic Literature:
The 1493 Manuscript Nova de miraculis disputatio
of Petrus Haedus at JHU

Tuesday, March 26, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of
Premodern Europe, and the Italian Section of the Department of
Modern Languages & Literatures, JHU

EMILY WILSON, University of Pennsylvania

Emily Wilson on the Iliad

Wednesday, March 27, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored with the Department of Classics, JHU

Round Table Discussants:
ANN BLAIR (Harvard), ANTHONY GRAFTON (Princeton),
EARLE HAVENS (JHU), WALTER STEPHENS (JHU),
Chaired by Krieger School of Arts & Sciences Dean
CHRISTOPHER CELENZA (JHU)

Book Launch:
Walter Stephens, How Writing Made us Human, 3000 B.C. to Now

Tuesday, April 2, 5:30 pm

Co-sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University Press

JENNIFER JARVIS (JHU) and EARLE HAVENS (JHU)

The Terrestrial and Celestial Globe Gores of François Demongenet (1552) at JHU

Tuesday, April 16, 5:15pm: A Rare Book “Making” Event

Co-sponsored by the Department of Conservation and Preservation
of the Sheridan Libraries, JHU

CAROL BAXTER, Trinity College, Dublin

Networking for Success:
Early Modern Nuns and Their Support Networks

Tuesday, April 30, 5:15 pm

Fall
2023
Lecture
Series

Painting of book with pages falling open
two figures surrounded by words

NOEL BLANCO MOURELLE, University of Chicago

The Art of Knowing Everything.
The Afterlives of Ramon Llull

Tuesday, September 5, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Spanish Section of the Department of
Modern Languages & Literatures

PETER DAVIDSON, Campion Hall, Oxford

Robert Southwell SJ, An Early Modern Catholic Poet and his Protestant Afterlives

Tuesday, October 3, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe,
the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, and the Department of Classics

JANE STEVENSON, Campion Hall, Oxford

Invisible Women:
Female Latinists after the Renaissance

Thursday, October 5, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe,
the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, and the Department of Classics

JAN GRAFFIUS, Stonyhurst College

Clandestine Survivals of Medieval and Early Modern Catholic Memory in England and the Spanish Netherlands

November 7, 5:15 pm

ERIN GIFFIN, Skidmore College

Tangible Abstractions: Holy Lengths on Textile and Paper in the Catholic Cult of Loreto

November 14, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Art

Spring
2023
Lecture
Series

Cosmic Visions in Early Modern Italy: Vincenzo Coronelli’s Paper Supercomputer
Lawrence Principe, Recovering John of Rupescissa’s Liber lucis

LAWRENCE PRINCIPE, History of Science & Technology, JHU

Recovering John of Rupescissa’s
Liber lucis: Medieval Alchemy, Philology,
and the Antichrist

Wednesday, March 1, 5:15 pm

Panel and “Making” Event
KAREN NÍ MHEALLAIGH, Classics, JHU
EARLE HAVENS, Stern Center, JHU
FILIP GEAMAN, History of Science & Technology, JHU
JENNIFER JARVIS, Department of Conservation & Preservation, JHU

Cosmic Visions in Early Modern Italy:
Vincenzo Coronelli’s Paper Supercomputer

Wednesday, March 15, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the 2022-23 JHU Discovery Award project “Cosmic Visions: Humanistic Engagements with the James Webb Space Telescope”

CATERINA MORDEGLIA, Literature and Philosophy, Università degli Studi di Trento

The Scribal Fortunes of Phaedrus’ Fables:
Mysterious Disappearances and Unexpected Rediscoveries of an Ancient Latin Text in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Tuesday, March 28, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

Fall
2022
Lecture
Series

Sor Juana de la Cruz
Carme Font, Cloistered Iconoclasts

CARME FONT, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Cloistered Iconoclasts:
Challenging Stereotypes of Early Modern Spiritual Women

Tuesday, September 27, 5:15 pm

CARME FONT, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Wisdom to be Found:
Genealogies of Knowledge in Women’s Spiritual Writings of the Long Reformation

Tuesday, October 4, 4:00 pm

Carme Font, Wisdom to Be Found

STEPHEN CLARKE, University of Liverpool

‘We saw churches, palaces, and pictures from morning to night’: New Manuscript Discoveries at JHU from Thomas Gray’s and Horace Walpole’s Grand Tour

Tuesday, October 11, 5:15 pm

MAXIM RIGAUX, Ghent University

Epic Echoes in JHU’s Women of the Book Collection:
Towards a Gendered Approach to Early Modern Ibero-American Epic

Tuesday, October 18, 5:15 pm

Maxim Rigaux, Epic Echoes in JHU’s Women of the Book Collection
Scott Mandelbrote, Isaac Newton’s Lost Reading

SCOTT MANDELBROTE, Peterhouse College, Cambridge

Isaac Newton’s Lost Reading

Thursday, November 3, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

Fall
2019
Lecture
Series

Paolini Man with Durers Small Passion

PAULA FINDLEN, Stanford University

Why Put a Museum in a Book? Ferrante Imperato’s Cabinet of Natural History in 16th-Century Naples

Thursday, September 17, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

PAULA FINDLEN, Stanford University

Why Put a Museum in a Book?
Ferrante Imperato’s Cabinet of Natural History in 16th-Century Naples

Thursday, September 17, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

JASON COHEN, Berea College

Illustrated Initials:
Letters and Questions of Scale in Early Printed Books

Thursday, October 8, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

JASON COHEN, Berea College

Illustrated Initials:
Letters and Questions of Scale in Early Printed Books

Thursday, October 8, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

Alphabet Book

SONJA DRIMMER, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Provisional Vision: Posters and Politics in Fifteenth-Century England

Thursday, October 22, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Art,
& the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

Heraldry

SONJA DRIMMER, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Provisional Vision: Posters and Politics in Fifteenth-Century England

Thursday, October 22, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Art,
& the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe

SETH KIMMEL, Columbia University

Early Modern Iberia, Indexed:
Hernando Colón’s Cosmography

Wednesday, November 13, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Science & Technology,
and the Department of German & Romance Languages & Literatures

SETH KIMMEL, Columbia University

Early Modern Iberia, Indexed:
Hernando Colón’s Cosmography

Wednesday, November 13, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Science & Technology,
and the Department of German & Romance Languages & Literatures

Kimmel Arms

ALISON SHELL,
University College London

English Recusant Drama in Manuscript and Print:
The Provocative Career of William Drury

Tuesday, November 19, 5:15 pm

Shell, Game of Chess

ALISON SHELL, University College London

English Recusant Drama in Manuscript and Print:
The Provocative Career of William Drury

Tuesday, November 19, 5:15 pm

Spring
2019
Lecture
Series

Man at writing at desk

LAUREN KASSELL, Cambridge University

Written in the Stars:
Digitizing an Astrological Archive

Wednesday, February 13, 5:15 pm

Co-Sponsored by the Singleton Center and English Department
See the Cambridge University Library “Casebooks” project

Kassell

LAUREN KASSELL, Cambridge University

Written in the Stars:
Digitizing an Astrological Archive

Wednesday, February 13, 5:15 pm

Co-Sponsored by the Singleton Center and English Department
See the Cambridge University Library “Casebooks” project

MARK CABALL, University College Dublin

Reading Jamaica:
Patrick Browne, an Early Modern Irish Botanist and Physician in the West Indies

Monday, March 25, 5:15 pm

MARK CABALL, University College Dublin

Reading Jamaica:
Patrick Browne, an Early Modern Irish Botanist and Physician in the West Indies

Monday, March 25, 5:15 pm

Fish

HANNAH MARCUS, Harvard University

Forbidden Fruits: Books and their Censors
in Early Modern Italy

Thursday, February 28, 5:15 pm

Co-Sponsored by the Singleton Center

Red Block Censorship of Erasmus

HANNAH MARCUS, Harvard University

Forbidden Fruits: Books and their Censors
in Early Modern Italy

Thursday, February 28, 5:15 pm

Co-Sponsored by the Singleton Center

Fifth Annual Bibliotheca Fictiva Lecture
FREDERIC CLARK, University of Southern California

The First Pagan Historian:
Dares Phrygius and the Forging of Troy from Isidore of Seville to Thomas Jefferson

Thursday, March 14, 5:15 pm

Co-Sponsored by the Singleton Center and Classics Department

Fifth Annual Bibliotheca Fictiva Lecture
FREDERIC CLARK, University of Southern California

The First Pagan Historian:
Dares Phrygius and the Forging of Troy from Isidore of Seville to Thomas Jefferson

Thursday, March 14, 5:15 pm

Co-Sponsored by the Singleton Center and Classics Department

Classical Scene

SUREKHA DAVIES, John Carter Brown Library

Reading Nature and Culture: Richard Eden’s Marginalia in the Johns Hopkins Copy of Peter Martyr’s Decades of the New World (1533)

Wednesday, April 17, 5:15 pm

Peter Martyr Map

SUREKHA DAVIES, John Carter Brown Library

Reading Nature and Culture: Richard Eden’s Marginalia in the Johns Hopkins Copy of Peter Martyr’s Decades of the New World (1533)

Wednesday, April 17, 5:15 pm

Fall
2018
Lecture
Series

The Spell

STEPHEN CLARKE, University of Liverpool

“The Most Delicious Places I Ever Beheld”: Italy and Architecture in
John Evelyn’s Grand Tour Diary, 1644-46

Thursday, September 13, 5:15 pm

City Engraving

STEPHEN CLARKE, University of Liverpool

“The Most Delicious Places I Ever Beheld”: Italy and Architecture in
John Evelyn’s Grand Tour Diary, 1644-46

Thursday, September 13, 5:15 pm

MAUDE VANHAELEN, University of Warwick

Plato in the Place of Aristotle:
The Teaching of Platonic Dialogues in 16th-century Universities

Tuesday, September 18, 5:15 pm

Co-Sponsored with the Department of German and
Romance Languages and Literatures

MAUDE VANHAELEN, University of Warwick

Plato in the Place of Aristotle: The Teaching of Platonic Dialogues in 16th-century Universities

Tuesday, September 18, 5:15 pm

Co-Sponsored with the Department of German and
Romance Languages and Literatures

Roman Sculpture

HEATHER BAMFORD, George Washington University

Cultures of the Fragment: Intention, Reading, and Meaning in the Early Modern Iberian Manuscript

Thursday, October 18, 5:15 pm

Carta Ejecutoria, 1572

HEATHER BAMFORD, George Washington University

Cultures of the Fragment: Intention, Reading, and Meaning in the Early Modern Iberian Manuscript

Thursday, October 18, 5:15 pm

GABRIELE FERRARIO, Johns Hopkins University

Alchemy in Motion: The Trilingual Tradition of an Alchemical Recipe Book

Wednesday, November 14, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Science and Technology

GABRIELE FERRARIO, Johns Hopkins University

Alchemy in Motion: The Trilingual Tradition of an Alchemical Recipe Book

Wednesday, November 14, 5:15 pm

Co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Science and Technology

Medieval Manuscript

Spring
2018
Lecture
Series

Poster

MARK RANKIN, James Madison University

Racking and Reading: Richard Topcliffe and the Book Culture of the Elizabethan Catholic Underground

Wednesday, February 21, 5:15 pm

MARK RANKIN, James Madison University

Racking and Reading: Richard Topcliffe and the Book Culture of the Elizabethan Catholic Underground

Wednesday, February 21, 5:15 pm

Annotated Book

GAVIN SCHWARTZ-LEEPER, University of Warwick

Richard Grafton and John Stow: Plagiarism, Popular History, and the Book in 16th-Century England

Wednesday, April 4, 5:15 pm

Printer's Device

GAVIN SCHWARTZ-LEEPER, University of Warwick

Richard Grafton and John Stow: Plagiarism, Popular History, and the Book in 16th-Century England

Wednesday, April 4, 5:15 pm

4th Annual Bibliotheca Fictiva Lecture on the History of Literary Forgery
THOMAS HENDRICKSON, Stanford University

Forgery and the Rise of the Book in Classical Antiquity

Friday, April 6, 3:00 pm

4th Annual Bibliotheca Fictiva Lecture on the History of Literary Forgery
THOMAS HENDRICKSON, Stanford University

Forgery and the Rise of the Book in Classical Antiquity

Friday, April 6, 3:00 pm

Roman Inscription

JOSHUA SMITH, Department of Classics, Johns Hopkins University

Homer’s Ocean: Concepts of Influence in Ancient Criticism

Tuesday, April 24, 5:15 pm

The World According to Homer

JOSHUA SMITH, Department of Classics, Johns Hopkins University

Homer’s Ocean: Concepts of Influence in Ancient Criticism

Tuesday, April 24, 5:15 pm